Just when I get to thinking that I am familiar inside and out with the odd world of Mo'ism, I stumble across something new. Today's revelation was Namarod's mention of a mallet at the veil, in the Temple.

What's that all about?

Obviously, I'm only Fascinated and not an ex-mo.

This is taken from a transcript of the Endowment Ceremony:

THE INITIATES PASS THROUGH THE VEIL

Presentation at the Veil

[Initiates are presented individually at the veil. The veil worker taps three times with the mallet.]

LORD: What is wanted?

WORKER: Adam, having been true and faithful in all things, desires further light and knowledge by conversing with the Lord through the veil [for and in behalf of _________, who is dead].

LORD: Present him at the veil, and his request shall be granted.

More proof that Joseph/Brigham borrowed from everything they could.

You mean they "borrowed" what they couldn't steal?

This Veil Presentation was copied and modified from the original Masonic Ceremony, see below:

The Senior Deacon gives three loud knocks with a mallet which is attached to the Lodge door, which are responded to by one knock from the parties outside. The Senior Deacon then answers with one rap, and opens the door.

S. D.--Who comes here?

J. D.--Brother ****, who has been regularly initiated Entered Apprentice, passed to the Degree of Fellow Craft, and now wishes to receive further light in Masonry, by being raised to the sublime Degree of a Master Mason.

Wow..I've never seen that mason ceremony with the mallet quoted before. Good grief! That right there show what a rip-off artist JS was. I am also surprised that this blatant use of that part of the mason's ceremony wasn't a huge red flag early on! Again, just WOW!

I want to mention something about this that I now find funny and ridiculous.

The person behind the veil represents the Lord.

We are taught that Jesus loves us and knows us personally. He is listening to our prayers, and indeed to every thought.

However, when we get to the veil to meet him for the first time his reaction is basically, "Who's there and what do you want?" Also, he is in effect saying "I am not sure you are who you say you are, or whether you have received your endowment, so we are going to go through the token handshakes and names."

For a god who claims to be omniscient, that is a major fail. I didn't see this until after I left.

It was also part of the ceremonies of the New York Firemen's Union back in the 1880s. They had a veil, they had a mallet with which they gave three distinct taps.

But of course this was Satan's Counterfeiting again.

It us one of the oldest rites of both the eastern and western churches. It happens every jubilee year

It's probably not what you're envisioning, it's most like a bass drum or gong mallet.

As I recall (it's been a few years) it's a blonde wooden mallet, about the length and look of a gavel, but with a head half the size, and is hanging on a piece of wood, to knock upon. There's one beside each veiled doorway. I think they actually showed someone knocking, in an episode of "Big Love."

Oh yeah you come out of the temple mind-boggled with all the weirdness!

The "Big Love" cameras panned down the rows of people standing in front of about 8 or 9 stations at the veil, all knocking, like an assembly line, which captures what it's really like. You're not anything unique or special.

Hurry through...another group is coming!

There's a whole lot of knocking going on!

"Hurry through . . .Another group is coming."

HaHA. That is just what happened to me at my endowment.


I sat there on a padded bench in the Celestial room, after stumbling through the veil, in the white on white on white trying to convince myself that there was something grander, holier than what I had beheld, and I was feeling that I had missed it. Is that it????

It was my fault, I thought. I wasn’t good enough, so the secrets of the heavens were withheld from me. Everybody else seemed to have gotten the point, judging by the dreamy looks on their faces. My parents were coaxing me to say what a beautifully holy experience it had been, and then, as the cherry on top of the whipped cream, some old lady was suddenly tapping me on the shoulder telling me to “just take a moment and then move along, please.”

The "bum’s rush!" Apparently another foamy contingent was about to wash ashore from the Lone and Dreary World Room, and we needed to make room for them!

During several visits, I purposely lingered, to see if there was really "another group coming through." I waited a good long while, until I got tired of waiting. Guess what--there was no group coming through right away--each time. I never saw anyone. The reason is not to hurry and make room for others.

1. The Mormons don't want your freshly-hatched questions and you newborn "WTF" thoughts to be discussed at all.

2. The Mormons don't want their fancy furniture actually sat-upon. Have you ever seen anyone sitting on the furniture in the celestial room--never! They don't want to clean all that white on white on white satin.

And, I'll bet the sooner the temple workers clear everybody out, the sooner they can take their break.

Fascinated in the Midwest Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Just when I get to thinking that I am familiar
> inside and out with the odd world of Mo'ism, I
> stumble across something new. Today's revelation
> was Namarod's mention of a mallet at the veil, in
> the Temple.
>
> What's that all about?


It's tiny! .....and it would take something much bigger to knock any sense into the (brain dead) MORmONS.

The ones I saw were like an old style door knocker. The worker tapped it three times just like knocking on a door. I think of it as a door striker not a mallet or hammer.

Think of it as saving the poor veil workers knuckles.

Now that you mention it, I do think there are different mallets or knockers in the different temples.

I know I have seem them like a bass drum stick, and when someone else mentioned that some of them do have mallet heads, I remember seeing those as well.

And now that you mention knockers, I think I have seen those, too.

This is funny to me, that they borrowed customs and ceremonies from the Masons.

Did Smith never expect that some Mormons would become Masons, and say, we copied this?

Or, the Mormons were purposefully kept so busy with callings that they would never have time to join the Masons and figure it out?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/08/2018 11:48AM by mel.

Who makes the mallets? A Master Mallet Maker with a Temple Recommend?

Different style mallets to match the different Temple building styles?

Think the maker signs his creations?

to the church by a company owned by a relative of a GA. In the Church's heyday of the 70-s through 90s there were very lucrative businesses supplying church buildings etc. with sound systems, lighting, carpet, expandable door panels, organs and pianos and yes mallets. Each one had to come from the Church owned monopoly supplier. In the late 80s I attended a ward on the East coast, we were having a new building built, and the church took forever getting in all of the approved wall finish fabric, benches, sound system etc, at great cost. We could have built the church for a fraction of the cost if we got to use local businesses.

Twice on the pipe if the answer is no ...

Wasn't there also some kind of knocking on the door sthick when you got your initiatory washings and anointings done, loins greased, and stepped into your nylon chapel shaps back in the 70s .. I must confess I blocked most of that out - it seems a bit like two of Harry Potter type elves playing with my privates in my memory.

Think they would get mad at you for standing there humming "knock three times"?

Ripped off from the Masons, like everyone says. And the irony, of course, is that the Gadianton Robbers are the BOM's proxy Masons.

At the time JS was slapping together the BOM, anti-Masonic sentiment was running at fever pitch. The Anti-Masonic Party was founded in 1828 in (ta-da!!) Smith's very own backyard – upstate New York. Because all he wanted to do was sell his dumb book, not start a church, he decided to incorporate the popular ideas then swirling around. Hence Gadianton & Friends.

Little did he know that he would eventually join them himself; "marry" the widow of William Morgan (the Mason who spilled the beans); rip off their rituals for his own purposes; and die with the Masonic call of distress on his lips. Where's a Prophet when you really need one?

I am a former 32nd Degree Scottish Rite and Blue Lodge Mason. I joined Freemasonry and worked on my Degrees shortly after losing my testimony. Every time I went through a Degree Ceremony, especially the first three, I would mentally say, "Holy shit!" every time I saw something that mirrored the Endowment Ceremony. There is no fucking way JS did not copy many parts of the Freemasons ceremonies and layout of the Lodge Room and Altar. Of course the meanings of both ceremonies are different, but so many of the parts are identical. Also, throughout the years, the Church has removed Masonic parts of the Endowment every time they've made changes to the ceremony

Remember, it's only symbolic...

just sayin'

God like hammers i guess
From wiki:
Ceremonial Hammer for the Verification of the Death of a Pope
This ceremonial hammer was used to tap a recently deceased pope on the forehead calling him by his Christian name. If there was no answer to the third call, the pope was declared dead. This ritual is said to have been used for the last time for Blessed pope John XXIII

ChurchCo secretly -surreptitiously got the contract to manufacture / sale that hammer to the Catholic church, but they only got the basic, stripped-down one;

ChurchCo has the platinum version!

The little mallet is used to begin your knock knock joke with God.

Knock Knock

What is wanted?

Adam having been true and faithful desires beer and wine.

Let him be presented at the veil and his request will be granted.

I always heard rumors they like to play with knockers in the temple.

I guess it’s knock, knock, knockin’ on Heaven’s door.

This is one knocking thread.....loved it.

Now I am going to google the pope getting knocked on the head to make sure the old guy is really dead......tooooo funny.